"Abandon hope all ye who enter here" should have been written
over the entrance to the Rio +20 summit. For the draft text reneges on or waters
down every principle of the original agreement and adds in a range of market
initiatives that will weaken ecosystems and block sustainable development.
A casual and shocking abandonment of the goals set out two
decades ago has made the summit worthless. There will no new money to support
poorer countries to advance in a sustainable way. The principle of Common But
Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) – whereby better off countries have to
make a greater reduction in their impact on the planet — is being sidelined and
if the US
has its way will disappear altogether.
Technology transfer, another key principle 20 years ago, is
under attack. The US , EU, Canada and Australia want the whole phrase
eliminated from the draft in favour of a focus on the kinds of research and
innovation that might be saleable. But, according to the same unholy alliance,
research into “planetary boundaries” should definitely not be on the agenda. A coalition of the Holy See and the US wants to
delete a sentence giving women a right to reproductive health services i.e.
contraception.
The new treaty's true focus is the weasel concept of
"Green Economy" — market initiatives that may or may not make any
actual contribution to sustainable development, but will be profitable.
The phrase “ecosystem services” has been introduced,
reinforcing the idea that nature is nothing more than a source of raw materials
for exploitation — but in a kind of green way, you understand. Putting monetary
value on forests or clean water systems simply continues the failed idea that
established the market in carbon credits.
The section on the health of the oceans has been undermined
by the US and Venezuela ,
because of their involvement in offshore oil. Two actual commitments on
deforestation have been deleted, replaced with empty platitudes.
“Rio +20 has turned into an
epic failure,” says
Greenpeace head Kami Naidoo. “We were promised the ‘future we want’ but are
now being presented with a ‘common vision’ of a polluter’s charter that will
cook the planet, empty the oceans and wreck the rain forests.” Jim Leape, head of World Wildlife Fund
added: “If they embrace this document, then this will have been a waste of
time.”
Well, of course Rio +20 is a
waste of time – who actually thought it would be anything else? Not WWF and
Greenpeace, who know full well that these summits deliver nothing, but continue
to tie those who want action into hoping that this time, finally, they will
deliver. That is because they do not see any actual alternative.
But that does not mean that there are no positive documents
on the table that could be discuss and adopted in a world where truly democratic
decisions were made in the interests of humanity.
The alternative
treaty drafted by the plurinational state of Bolivia states that "the
capitalist system is the principal cause of the imbalance because it puts the
rules of the market and the accumulation of profit above the laws of nature.
Nature is not simply a sum of elements, it’s not a source of resources that can
be exploited, modified, altered, privatised, commercialised and transformed
without any consequences.”
And it adds: “The postulates promoted under the Green
Economy are wrong. The current environmental and climate crisis is not a simple
market failure. The solution is not to put a price on nature. Nature is not a
form of capital. It is wrong to say that we only value that which has a price,
an owner, and brings profits. The market mechanisms that permit exchange among
human beings and nations have proven incapable of contributing to an equitable
distribution of wealth."
The challenge, therefore, is how to set about replacing
these profit-creating mechanisms with shared progress towards the eradication
of poverty, creating rights for human beings and for nature as a whole to halt
climate change and restore the planet's ecology to a degree of health.
Penny Cole
Environment editor
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